The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors that mount to electrical cables.
Electrical connectors have been used to interconnect coaxial cables. Coaxial cables are used in various radio frequency (RF) applications. In the automotive industry, for example, there is a demand for coaxial cables and connectors due in part to increased electrical devices within automobiles, such as AM/FM radios, cellular phones, GPS, satellite radios, wireless communication systems, and the like.
The housings of some known electrical cable connectors are configured to be key-mated to an appropriate mating connector in a specific angular orientation. Key-mating the connectors reduces the occurrence of accidentally connecting two inapposite cable connectors, which could damage both the connectors and the electrical devices conductively linked to the connectors by the coaxial cables. However, if the housings of the connectors are not able to rotate relative to the cables, aligning the housings in the specified angular orientation during a mating operation may apply torsional stress and tension on the cable and the components of the connectors terminated to the cable. Such torsional forces may damage the performance of the electrical connectors, such as by pulling one or more wires of the cable out of engagement with a center contact of the corresponding connector. A need remains for allowing the housing to rotate relative to the cable while avoiding extra manufacturing and assembly costs attributable to the addition of auxiliary components, such as secondary locks.